Sneak Peeks, Plans & Updates for...all of 2023! (Patreon)

Good evening, my lovely Patrons! I'll be taking this week off from audio production to get my ducks in a row for the rest of January/February (and rest from the Holidays!) but that doesn't mean I don't have stuff to share.

I come to you tonight with a very special Sneak Peeks, Plans & Update post: a look ahead at all of--well, okay, most of--my plans and goals for the channel in 2023. Will these plans be a bit vague in spots?

Huh, it seems my foresight is experiencing some fog. Oh well. It's nice to stay flexible, I suppose. 

Extremely crummy jokes aside (sorry they can't all be winners!) there are a lot of things I want to accomplish in 2023. I'm going to try and break my huge wish list for the channel down into manageable chunks and tackle it over the coming months. So, let's talk about many of the things I'll be working toward behind the scenes--and hopefully keeping Patrons apprised of all year long!

Main Channel Goals: 

This category is for all the tasks I definitely plan to do, so long as I don't get hit by a runaway hippopotamus or something.

1: One audio weekly for Vanilla Velvet Audio with room to take a break a few times this year if I need to. (Like I'm doing this week!) I'm aiming to deliver at minimum between 48-52 audios this year. That's my "if every event somehow blows up in my face, I still want to get that many out!" number.

2. One themed audio event every quarter for a total of four in 2023. Last year I did five, which was okay, but I think four--with adequate space between each--will be a bit better for my stamina and keep me from burning out. 

The events I'm planning to do will have three audios per week and are as follows.

• Februdere (February) - All yandere audios; 12 total 
• Monster Girl Mayhem (May) - All monster girl audios; 14 total
• Here for the Boos (September) - Spooky/monster themed audios; 13 total
• Creature Comforts (December) - Inhuman themed comfort audios; 13 total

I've decided to experiment with bumping Here for the Boos into September, even though October would be more thematically appropriate for a few reasons. 

For starters: an October/December/February event schedule is just too tight. Experience has taught me that a month to breathe in between three major bursts of work is simply not enough. When I get through Februdere, I'll definitely be glad for the long break until May! I'd like late 2023/early 2024 to feel a bit less hectic, and pushing the event to September will accomplish that.

Secondly, and rather prudently, I think my channel will run into fewer of the issues that likely caused the event to recently under perform if it takes place in September. I suspect the trend of channels getting in on spooky themed audios in October will continue to grow in 2023 (and probably forever after!) and I'd much rather sidestep the rush if I can help it. I'll be interested to see the results of this change.

Anyway! Provided this schedule holds, the result will be 52 event audios. If all works out, my yearly total should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 80+ roleplays. Which is definitely a lot! But not impossible, given that I made 89 videos in 2022.

3: At least one yandere and monster girl roleplay monthly, just to keep my audio offerings balanced and consistent. I realized during several months of 2022 I neglected to post anything yandere or monster girl related! That won't do for 2023. My logo is a magical girl butcher knife for goodness sake; I gotta give the people what they want!

4. More long form roleplays and sequels, with an emphasis on multi-part scripts in single audios because there are simply too many series out there that I want to do and not enough time to fit them into the schedule as solo audios.

5. Pay writers more often! In February, my channel will have officially been monetized for a full year (technically it went legit in December 2021, but my first payout didn't happen until then!) and I'll have enough data to better determine how much I'm making on average per video, after expenses. I wanna spread more of that money around, by giving each writer I work with in 2023 15% of my average per-video revenue on youtube for the use of their scripts.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a lot! Probably between $6-10 each video. Some writers don't even want payment beyond a script fill and that's fine, too. But: the past year there has been a tiny Harlan Ellison sitting on my shoulder, crankily whisper-shouting pay the writer in my ear, and now I'll have the means to shut him up. (Well, I can shut him up about this. Anyone with a shoulder-Harlan knows he'll just change topics to rant about something else.)

I have yet to decide how to handle this plan when it comes to multi-script audios...I'll probably settle on a slightly higher rate in that case--20%? 25%? But no matter what, it'll be better than nothin'! As my channel grows, I'll update the payment estimate at least annually, so the amount writers see on the back end will scale with my popularity. 

I also hope to back pay some writers I've already used on my channel, but I haven't quite figured out how I'll handle that yet. after 120+ videos, it'll take awhile to catch up!

6. Updated Channel Art to feature Velvet's sidekick, Lurk!

7. More original art for videos, more merch designs, more goodies for Patrons, etc.: which is pretty self explanatory, I think

8. Finish sound-treating and properly soundproof my recording studio! Again, self explanatory. But a hefty job that will take all year.

9. The Ultimate Waifu Championship! which is what Throwback Thursday polls on youtube have been slowly creeping toward since last July. It should be set to go in the middle of summer, 2023.

Secondary Channel Goals:

These are things I hope to get done, but I'm also willing to let these goals go (or only half-ass them!) if my main goals become too cumbersome during the year.

1. Launch Red Velvet Audio: You might remember a few months ago I shared my plan to launch a secondary channel, Red Velvet Audio, for more standard ASMR audios and riskier content. I had branding and everything!

Welp! Those plans were promptly kneecapped by youtube's new content policies. Can't launch a super spicy channel if spice is even more strictly regulated!

But: I haven't completely given up on the idea of a dedicated space for audios that are more whispery and sleepy than my usual content. At the risk of sounding like I'm throwing shade (I promise I'm not!), ASMR focused audio is a lot easier for me to perform and edit than what I usually create, and I think it'd be nice to have a channel for scripts I want to do that might be better suited to soft spoken audio with minimal sound design.

I'd like to do a video per week for Red Velvet Audio if/when it launches, and I think I could handle the workload given that ASMR is less labor intensive to make than immersive audio, but...I'm fully prepared to flop, gang! Still, that doesn't mean I don't want to try.

(Red Velvet Audios would also be shared with current Patrons with early access, so don't worry!)

2. Write one original script per month: Write and share with other VAs/ASMRtists, I should say, even if I don't have time to perform all of my scripts myself. I did four original scripts last year of varying complexity, so managing to do twelve would be quite the jump in effort. If I can't make this goal, I would be satisfied with 4-6 original scripts in 2023, but that's the bare minimum. Anything less and I'd be sad!

3. One collab per month: This is the big enchilada, submitting myself to the terrifying ordeal of being known...by other VAs. My social anxiety is already bouncing around inside me and pinging off my internal organs like a pinball at the thought, but I want to try and line up collabs with other channels, both big and small, in 2023. How will it work? I have no idea! But I'm gonna take the plunge!

D:

Channel Related/Adjacent Goals

Stuff that may/may not work out that I'd nevertheless like to do this year but that I am fully prepared to abandon if necessary.

1. A vtuber model for future Q&As and such: I've already been working on one, actually, but I'm not quite satisfied with the end result. Here's a peek at that, if you're curious:

I like big hair and I cannot lie.

Other than using the model for Q&As and general goofing off, I haven't decided what I'll do with it yet. My real life schedule isn't structured in such a way to make regular (or even sporadic) live streaming possible, so twitch and such is right out. Ah well. We'll see what I come up with down the line. 

2. Three or four [redacted] TOP SECRET side projects! which I'm not ready to share until they're in...like, any stage of completion. Sorry! But I will share more details when/if they get even close to off the ground! 

And finally...Goals I Technically Have No Control Over But Hope to Reach Anyway!

• 50,000 subs on youtube: a reasonable goal that I'm likely to hit this year
• 75,000 subs on youtube: the more pie-in-the-sky goal that, at my current rate of growth might be a bit trickier
• 100 patrons would be awfully nice!
• 50 youtube members would be grand!
• I'd like to see every (currently existing) audio reach 20k views, and all of those I produce in 2023 hit at least 10k each before the end of the year. 

Again, I have no control over whether I hit these numbers or not, but gee, I sure would like to!

Well. That's it, for now! I hope you enjoyed this gaze into the farflung future of Vanilla Velvet Audio, even if it suffered from low visibility in places. 

See you soon!

xoxo,

Velvet